Life
A series of, perhaps random thoughts, or if you take the time to try and make some coherent sense of the whole, perhaps something deeper. But probably not.
I was inspired to start this task by the book ‘By the Waters of Galilee’ by Fr Luke Fay of Catholic faith. I had read the first two chapters, was enjoying it, and started thinking. And I thought of a work called ‘Life’ with a similar cover to the cover of Fr Fay’s work. And the idea was simply a writing of life. Perhaps the closest thing that was to come to it was a self-help book, but in its purest form I intended it to not even be that. Perhaps philosophy, but I am not trying to be philosophical, yet it probably is philosophy, even though that is not my intent. I simply wanted to write thoughts on life, thoughts about a positive moral life, which might make it almost a religious or spiritual text, but that was not the intent. It is simply to be about life, not a novel, not a work of science, but just thoughts on life.
How about the oil spill off the American coast. Thank God its over there is probably the bottom line for this shallow environmentalist.
Anyway, enough with current affairs. Actually, no, I will write on some current affairs. I prayed, a while back, for Kevin Rudd to be Prime Minister for 21 years. I am keeping the faith on that prayer, as I am a left wing idealist. My friend Adrian Chan is not the biggest fan of politicians, but I assume they generally have good intentions, and that the demands of satisfying everyone means they aggravate a lot of people. But that is only life after all.
I like listening to music. I have schizophrenia so often go on mad rampages and destroy half of my cd collection in a fit of psychosis. But psychosis affects a lot of people, so I am not alone.
I was at the pool recently and I thought up some ideas for a whacky book called ‘Zen I’. The dialogue goes something like this.
Zen Zen I Zen I Zen I
Zen I Zen I Zen I Zen I
Zen Zen Zen Zen I I I I Zen I Zen I Zen I Zen I
Zen I Zen Zen Zen I Zen Zen I
Zen I Zen I Zen I
Zen Zen I Zen I Zen I
Zen Zen I Zen I
Zen Zen Zen Zen Zen Zen Zen
Zen I Zen I Zen I Zen I
Zen Zen I Zen I Zen I
Zen Zen I Zen I Zen I
Zen Zen I Zen I Zen I
Zen Zen I Zen I
Zen Zen Zen Zen Zen Zen Zen
Zen I Zen I Zen I
Zen Zen I Zen I Zen I
Zen Zen I Zen I
Zen Zen Zen Zen Zen Zen Zen
Zen I I I I I
Zen Zen I Zen Zen Zen I
Zen I Zen I Zen I
& so on and so forth in about 40 pages of a little hardback anthology. On the final page the last line goes:
Zen Zen I Zen I Zen I Zen Zen (4XQR#) Zen I Zen I Zen I
It is not stop Zen I until that line. I don’t know why, it just is. Heh.
I reckon Madonna should go into the studio with a compilation of new songs written by songwriters she has hired. She should do an album a day for 3 years straight – over 1000 albums – just doing one or two takes of each song, and being filmed all the time, and with video workers simply making videos for all the songs for her from the ongoing video of her singing. Just one to two takes of the song, get the album finished, and released. And do this every day for 3 years. She can hire countless mixers and producers for the stuff and just realease a shitload of albums and videos. Overkill in the most extreme, and it really doesn’t matter if they sell that much, because there will be enough diehards who will buy all of them and she will sell tonnes. She is a hard worker, could get the job done, and it would get her the highest album sales of all time after a while. Someone with her fame and wealth could do that, and I would if I could sing, had her fame and her money.
4 + 4 = 8
8 + 8 = 16
16 + 16 = 32
Mathematics is a very entertaining subject for intellectuals. You see, intellectuals are what they call in classic American schoolyard jargon, the nerds. And the nerds like Maths, English, Science, and putting computer systems together.
I hope to be a fully qualified nerd upon retirement. Think of all the dollar bills they end up getting, hey. I mean look at Billy Gates. Come up with Microsoft and what the Trillions role in. But apparently the kids don’t get a cent, and have to work for themselves. Now that’s a responsible parent.
Intellectuals also like philosophy, sneering at religious people who believe in creationism (which I do), and listening to classical or alternative music and disdaining all things commercial. Heavy Metal has a similar attitude, especially back in the day. I mean, if you were a metalhead and listened to the Spice Girls it was a death penalty offense or excommunication from the headbangers ball. And if you touched Boyzone they would torture you first.
Heavy Metal gurus are another bunch of pseudo-intellectual snobs. Parading their Black Sabbath albums, saying that Led Zeppelin are gods, and that such and such a band – their current fave – has reinvented heavy metal forever.
They love to give ratings in heavy metal mags, but rolling stone does that too. And people honestly take an interest in these ratings. But if there is one thing I have discovered is that tastes are often very subjective – they vary widely from person to person – and an album that somebody may rate very poorly, another set of persons might enjoy tremendously. Especially poppy commercial stuff which is, again, sneered at, but which usually sells the most because the kids have enough sense to buy albums which are actually fun and not laden down with depressing angst and bullshit feelings of a so-called contemplated soul. Intelligent albums SUCK unless there is a quality of music which is attractive, melodic and memorable. Michael Jackson, for example, may be on many supposedly serious music critics hate list for his pop classic ‘Thriller’, but he is at number one because he knows what the kids like. And, funnily enough, these commercial artists who sell the most end up being the ‘Beatles’ of their era, and end up very respected. It happens to them with time and age. Mozart was an upstart to some to start with, despite his brilliance (apparently). Justin Beiber, for example, would be laughed at by a supposedly serious music critic, but the kids are not dumb. He sings a song which perfectly captures their vibe as teenagers, and is entirely appropriate and critically excellent for his target audience. He doesn’t have to produce Amy Lee or Bob Dylan. That is not his audience, and would be stupid to suggest it is. But that is what people often fall into with age – they forget the younger generation are learning, and that they too once liked such stuff.
Oh, and as a confirmed Noahide, I don’t really mind if the Beatles thought they were bigger than Jesus for a while. They possibly were.
When I was younger I felt it important to develop religious morality to be a perfect person. I still think that somewhat, but don’t worry as much anymore. Jesus says in the gospels ‘Be Ye Perfect as your Father in Heaven is Perfect.’ A challenge to Christians I suppose.
You know, there are a hell of a lot of those 2 billion Christians (I have seen the statistics – approx 1 bill Catholics and 1 bill non-catholic Christians) who work there assess of spiritually to give Jesus a hell of a witness for the continued growth and establishment of his church of Glory.
As a Noahide I view Jesus as an ambitious Jewish man, dedicated to his own glory, by and large.
Now, as a Christian most of you view Jesus as God. But he isn’t. He wasn’t. And he never will be. He was just a bloke. If you don’t believe me ask God the father (ie Yahweh). These days he might possibly inform you upon the answer to that question, as he is severely pro-Israel from all my personal observations.
Anyway, in current rankings of the all time most popular human beings, the rankings approximately come up like this.
Number One – Jesus of Nazareth
Number Two – Muhammed
Number Three – Jesus mother, Mary
Number Four – Buddha
Number Five – Moses, I think
Number Six – Apostle Paul
Number Seven – The current number seven is either Taylor Swift or Miley Cyrus on current myspace page hits. This might surprise you, but this is their era and the current ‘Cult of Personality’ has HUGE fanbases. Really fucking HUGE fanbases.
Anyway Miley and Taylor edge out Apostle Peter, King David, Abraham, Jacob, Adolph Hitler, and Justin Beiber for the present, but he is in the top 20 all time just about. I know that is recent, but you don’t know the power of the current fame monster, as Gaga puts it, with the ever expanding human population.
Mao Tse Tung, Joseph Stalin, Karl Marx, Shakespeare, Robert Pattinson, Daniel Radcliffe, Angelina Jolie, Brad Pitt, Victoria Beckham, George Washington, J K Rowling, J R R Tolkien, Marilyn Monroe, Elvis Presley, Winston Churchill & Emma Watson are some of the very big names, likely in the top thirty to forty all time. Add on Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Ludwig Van Beethoven who are currently the two number ones in the classical scene – they share the honour.
But number one is the carpenter from Nazareth. Still caining after 2000 years. Believe me, that takes some effort, but with the beloved ‘Cross’ at his disposal, which the faithful were around their necks with pride, the ‘Christ Child’ isn’t letting go of the number one slot any time soon. Hey, people think he is actually God himself, and that takes a lot to compete with. But somebody’s got to do it.
Probably 666 will show up, some dude or dudette thinking that might work for a while, and take on the JC fellow. Bad news at the moment, though, because most humans are patently aware that the mark of the beast is bad news on judgement day. But, fucking hell, Iron Maiden released ‘Number of the Beast’ and sold a shitload. I guess the Antichrist is a keen competitor to the big fellow. You never know, he might grab the top slot for a while. What was that? Seven years says my pentecostal friend? Tribulation glory, but it won’t last? Aye Carumba.
So how did Jesus get to the top slot? I have written on that before, but lets just say this much. If you can win somebody’s respect, and then start a religious cult, and then have that cult evangelize their socks off for 2000 years, it sure as hell helps.
So how do you potential wannabes start a religious cult then? In Christianity every tom dick and harry started a church for a while. They were called protestants. So, to be a protestant, it is simple. Tell your current pastoral overlord to take a running jump, and start preaching those doctrines you have always wanted to preach, and evangelize. Evangelization is easy. First, do up a free website on angelfire, and post your church doctrines and teachings. Go to the library and print off 100 pages of A4 flyers, 4 flyers to a page, and cut them into 4s and make sure you put the name of the church and the website link and email address. And then, if you really want to build wonderchurch, make it your hobby to go to carparks, put flyers on car windows, and do this for 20 years. Its slow, but it works.
Now, for you lateral thinkers, Christianity is basically covered. Try something new. L Ron Hubbard did. He called it scientology, and the freaks practically worship him.
So go for something pseudo spiritual, a catchy name, special key teachings on enlightenment, and stick to your guns. Oh, and be dramatic. It helps.
Those thoughts will do for now. I might continue this some time.
Daniel
http://noahidebooks.angelfire.com
